In Brief: Essential Insights for Post-Military Transition
6 Mar 2023 · 5 min
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In this solo InBrief podcast episode, Jordana Megonigal, CEO of the Recon Network, reflects on International Women’s Day by highlighting three historically under‑recognized women—Sybil Ludington, Harriet Tubman, and Irena Sendler—who each broke societal barriers in their eras. She recounts Ludington’s 40‑mile midnight ride in 1777 that rallied militia forces, Tubman’s repeated escapes from slavery and leadership of the Underground Railroad and Civil‑War spy network, and Sendler’s World‑War‑II operation rescuing over 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto. Jordana connects these stories to a broader leadership framework: true leaders either acknowledge barriers and strategically work around them, or simply ignore the barriers altogether, using courage, communication, and purpose to drive change. The episode concludes that the core lesson from these women is not merely bravery but the willingness to act as if the barrier does not exist, offering listeners a practical mindset for personal and professional challenges.
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This is InBrief. Let's get to it. Hey there, welcome back to InBrief, where we take a few minutes each week to hopefully make your transition a little bit easier or give you a new perspective to take into a new week. I'm Jordana. I'm the CEO of the Recon Network. This week we're talking about breaking barriers. So throughout history, women have played a very important and largely unrecognized role. But when it comes to learning how to stand up in courage and do whatever it takes to succeed, there are some incredible lessons that are waiting to be found. In this episode, and in honor of International Women's Day coming up this week, I wanted to dig into just a few examples In the Revolutionary War, while men were away on the battlefield, it was the women who had to maintain farms and households, keep the family alive, and even provide for the war effort at the same time, often with limited supplies and resources. Seen as weaker and somewhat fragile, women at that time had limited education, very few legal rights, and even in times of war, were expected to remain home. But even with those mild expectations and vast limitations, you saw many women rise up in times of need. One such woman— a teenage girl, actually— mounted a horse one night in 1777 and rode 40 miles through the Hudson Valley, rallying the nearby troops for battle. Although Paul Revere became far more noted for doing the same, even though he rode less than a third of the distance, Sybil Ludington's efforts that night paid off, and the following battle ended with the British retreating to the coast. 72 years later, a 27-year-old enslaved woman made a successful escape from a Maryland plantation all the way to Pennsylvania. While she could have settled down and enjoyed living as a free woman after that point, she wanted freedom for others, too. And so Harriet Tubman ended up going south again, time after time after time, To lead others through the Underground Railroad and toward freedom. Through it all, she saved at least 70 others from slavery, with some accounts showing more like 300, before becoming the head of a spy network during the Civil War. In World War II, a nurse in Warsaw, Poland used her medical credentials to gain trust and access to the ghetto after Germany had invaded the country. With that access, Irena Sendler. Set up a huge operation that smuggled Jewish children out of harm's way, hiding them in everything from coffins to potato sacks to transport them. The entire time, she learned each child's name and saved it in one of many buried jars. Before being arrested, tortured, and then narrowly escaping, Irena had saved more than 2,500 children from an unthinkable fate. A few weeks ago on this podcast, we talked about how leaders are made. And in that episode, we focused on how some leaders only find themselves in a position of leadership because of their response to the immediate circumstances around them. When there's a challenge, we all have within us the power to rise up and face that challenge, and in some cases, become the leaders that others need in that situation. Part of that leadership is knowing how and when to acknowledge the barriers that are in front of you. The other part is knowing how and when to ignore the barriers completely and push through. Each of these women that we just discussed didn't just break the barriers that were in front of them; they ignored the fact that those barriers existed at all. Sybil Ludington wasn't just a young girl. She was an effective communicator that potentially turned the tides in battle. Harriet Tubman wasn't just an enslaved woman. She was an unshakable force with the courage to run into trouble rather than away from it. And Irena wasn't just a nurse. She was a protector and a guardian and a historian without whom 2,500 more souls may have perished. Throughout history, there are these stories of both men and women who broke through the barriers designed to keep them in one place. Through their lives, they've taught us how to stand up for what we believe to be right and true, and how to move forward to your calling, no matter what it might be. But more than that, if there's only one thing that we learn from these women about how to break through any of the barriers or obstacles in your own life, it's not just to be courageous or bold or strong. It's to ignore the fact that there's a barrier there at all.
